


maybe bad, perfectly good

by starblessed



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Gen, Heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: "You know,” Harry sighs. “I knew I’d screw up plenty in my life, but I never thought I’d end up in the Big House.”“This isn’t the big house,” Speirs replies in a flat voice. “We’re in a holding cell at the police station. This is a very little house.”Oh god, Kitty is going tokillhim.
Relationships: Carwood Lipton/Ronald Speirs, Kitty Grogan/Harry Welsh, Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	maybe bad, perfectly good

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, the characters in this fic are based off of their fictional portrayals from the miniseries Band of Brothers, and I mean no disrespect to the real-life veterans!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [renelemaires](http://renelemaires.tumblr.com/)!

Kitty is going to kill him.

At this point, he isn’t being dramatic. He’s not entertaining some mournful fantasy thought up during the many idle minutes he’s had tonight. It’s a fact.

Harry has accepted it. He’s ready to die. It’s been a good life, all things considered.

He swings his foot in a wide arch, tracking it with his eyes. The motion is monotonous, dizzying — boring. It does little to take his mind off their situation, but honestly it’s all he’s got right now.

(Why do they confiscate your phone in prison, anyway? It’s not like you’re going to saw your way out of the cell with the memory chip. At worst, maybe you could fling it at a guard’s head, but what’s the point?)

He’s stuck in a tiny cell with two other guys, nothing to do, and the looming certainty that Kitty is going to strangle him once they get home.

“You know,” he sighs. “I knew I’d screw up plenty in my life, but I never thought I’d end up in the Big House.”

“This isn’t the big house,” Speirs replies in a flat voice. “We’re in a holding cell at the police station. This is a very little house.”

Of all three of them, Speirs is the one that’s most calm about this. Harry isn’t surprised, by any means, but he feels like he ought to be more alarmed. Speirs’s nonchalance about the fact that they now all have records would be worrying if Harry didn’t suspect the man already has outstanding warrants for him in multiple states.

To be fair, it wasn’t Speirs’s idea to steal the statue. It wasn’t Harry’s, either. It was all Nix’s idea – Nix, who knew the absolute best thing to do after fighting with his boyfriend was drag his friends out to get shitfaced; Nix, who saw the statue and knew in an instant that it would make the perfect _‘I’m sorry’_ gift for Dick.

Stealing a statue is a lot harder than it looks. Who’d have guessed?

A loud snore rings out from the single cot in the corner of the cell. Annoyance flaring up, Harry tosses one of his shoes in that direction. Nixon sits up, bleary eyed, looking more affronted than Harry’s ever seen him.

“If we don’t get to rest, neither do you. I don’t care how many shots you’ve got to sleep off.”

Nixon slumps against the wall, sullen, but doesn’t go back to sleep. Harry can count that to his credit, at least, if absolutely nothing else. It’s Nixon’s fault that they’re in this mess in the first place; and Nixon better be paying their bail, or else Harry will have to kill his friend before Kitty manages to get to him.

Speirs alternates between slinking around the cell like a trapped cat or slumped on the floor, tracing patterns in the dirt with his fingertips. Nixon was too drunk to move from the cot the moment they were tossed in the cell, and too lazy once he sobered up. Harry spent a few hours pacing, trying to swallow back his distress before he could start full-out panicking, but now he’s worn himself out. He leans against the bars of the tiny cell, relishing the feeling of them digging into his back, and tries to imagine what the outside world looks like.

Maybe it’s still night; or maybe it’s early in the morning, the sun just beginning to peak over the horizon. Will he ever see the sun again?

“My dad almost went to prison,” Nix says suddenly, in a tone so conversational that it takes Harry a second to realize what he’s saying. “He beat a kid half to death with an oar in college.”

Speirs and Harry blink at him, neither one sure what to make of the information he’s offered up. Maybe Nix doesn’t expect them to make anything of it. He smiles to himself, grim and humorless, leaning back against the brick wall. “Almost. Didn't actually manage it. Glad to know I’m still the family disappointment.”

Harry whistles. “Remind me never to drop by yours for Thanksgiving.”

“Our cook would mistake you for the turkey.”

Speirs stretches his legs out in front of him and sighs. Harry purses his lips, draws his knees up, and rests his chin on top of them. Sometimes he thinks he’s better off not knowing what the hell his friends are thinking. (Hell, if he were smart, he wouldn’t get involved with any of them at all.)

The sudden sound of the door opening jars him to attention. He sits up, pushing away from the bars and spinning around, only to come face to face with the sheriff’s deputy. A ring of keys dangles in his hands. He steps forward, a metal clink sounding as he unlocks the cell door.

“Good news,” he announces. “You’ve been bailed out, Mr. Speirs.”

That’s when Harry notices who followed the deputy into the room: one very unamused Carwood Lipton.

Lip is wearing a rumpled sweater. His hair is uncombed, and dark circles ring his eyes. His mouth is pressed into a thin line as he studies the three men in the cell. Harry doesn’t think he’s seen Lip look so _done_ in all the time he’s known him.

“Lip!” Lacking the self-preservation skills necessary to keep himself out of prison in the first place, Nix looks thrilled to see him. He lights up in a way that he usually doesn’t unless there’s a bottle of Vat 69 in front of him. “I knew it wouldn’t take you long to get here!”

Speirs files out of the cell like a kid who’s got his hand stuck in the cookie jar. Lip's glower could shame even the world's most entitled house cat -- Speirs doesn't stand a chance. When his boyfriend’s hand lands on his back, he goes tense. His head is bowed so low that Harry’s surprised his forehead isn’t touching the ground.

“You and I are having a _talk_ later,” Lipton announces. Ron mumbles something Harry can’t hear, but has got to be along the lines of, _“yes, dear.”_

Lipton’s arm twines around his shoulders. “Now, let’s go home.”

A jolt of alarm shoots through Harry’s stomach as their friends take a step back. He’s not the only one who’s realized something is terribly wrong. “Wait,” demands Nix, pressing himself against the bars. “What does that mean? When are we getting out of here?”

Lip shoots him a bland look. “That’s a good question.”

“You mean you’re leaving us?” Harry demands, choking on his own disbelief. Surely Lip, faithful, good Lip could never be so _cruel…_

“That’s the way it is, boys,” Lip replies, turning his back on them both. “Whatever happens, you’ll have to face the music on your own. Consider that your first punishment.”

It’s like a door to heaven slamming in their faces; salvation slips from their reach once again. _Their first punishment,_ he said, and the words echo in their heads. Whatever hell their significant others will see fit to rain down upon their heads, Lip has recused himself of any responsibility. If he doesn’t pay their bail, it’s not his problem.

(Lip’s only problem will be Speirs, and what a problem _he_ is. Whatever condemnation Lip has planned for him, Harry hopes he doesn’t show any mercy.)

As Lip files out of the police station, dragging a subdued Ron behind him, Harry can only gape.

“I don’t believe it,” he mutters. Nix snorts out a humorless laugh.

“I can. Traitor.”

Harry can’t tear his eyes away from the cell door, once more locking them away from the outside world. “Wha- what —“ he starts, voice coming out high pitched. “What do we _do?”_

“Relax. I’ve got my lawyers on it already. We’ll both be bailed out by morning. Just give them a chance to do their work.”

Nix looks so sure of his own words that his calm begins to infect Harry too, like a virus. Slowly, he feels the worst of his anxieties start to fade. It’s not that bad, as long as Nix is here. It won’t be that bad as long as he’s stuck in jail alongside a guy rich enough to buy the whole police precinct. He’s going to be alright.

Then he looks away from Nixon and back at the bars of the cell. His stomach drops.

Nixon’s money better do it’s damn work soon, because Harry’s not sure how much longer he can stand being a jailbird.

* * *

Nixon doesn’t come through.

Before his “people” get the chance to wire any bail money, Dick gets there first. Somehow neither of them had considered the worst case scenario — Dick finding out his boyfriend is in prison before Nixon could get out. Of course, being Dick, he wasn’t going to let him sit there; of course Nix, being Nix, didn’t want Dick to know a thing about this whole endeavor until he could tell Dick himself.

It was not to be.

Nixon is marched from his cell like a man going off to his execution, desperately glancing behind him at Harry for help. As if Harry can do anything. He’s a little locked up at the moment. Literally.

All Nixon gets the chance to do is mouth _I’m sorry_ before the door slams shut, leaving Harry alone once more.

Harry sits back against the cell wall and stares up at the ceiling. His last option is gone. This is it, then.

There’s only one way out, and he just has to wait for her to calm down enough to show up.

* * *

Kitty walks into the cell wearing a brand new purple dress, heels, and the gleaming gold necklace Harry got her for her last birthday. Her hair is done, curls pinned on top of her head and falling gently around her face. She’s gotten a manicure; her nails glisten.

It’s almost four o’clock in the afternoon. Harry has been sitting in prison since midnight.

“Sweetheart —“ is the first thing out of his mouth. Kitty silences him with a chilly stare.

“Harry, I don’t even want to hear it.”

The warden unlocks the door; Harry doesn’t wait a second before bounding out, adrenaline racing at the new window of freedom. He goes to hug Kitty, but she sidesteps him. He almost winds up hugging the warden instead, who, to be fair, seems cool with it.

“Come on,” Kitty sighs. “We’re going home, and we can have a long talk when we get there.”

Harry is led like a dog on a leash out of the police station. He bows his head against the bright sunlight, so foreign that it almost blinds him. He’s so distracted that he barely even realizes Kitty is driving the car until she’s already sliding into the driver’s seat.

“What the hell?” he spits out. “You didn’t get rid of the car?”

“I had no reason to,” replies Kitty. “You were the ones who got caught.”

Harry’s eyes widen. He plops down in the passenger’s seat, and slams the door hard enough to make the car shake. “Are you kidding me?” he hisses. “You _drove away without us!_ What happened to ‘for better or for worse’?”

Kitty eyes him over the top of her sunglasses, unimpressed. “What happened to ‘knowing how to run’?”

In retrospect, Kitty probably would have made a very good criminal. Hell, she probably could have stolen the statue and gotten away with it. The only reason she was designated driver in the first place was because she was the only one of them sober enough to drive. Harry expected she would stick by them anyway. The designated driver is supposed to wait until every member of the party is in the car, not tear off alone at the first sound of sirens.

Then again, it’s probably for the best. Harry can’t picture Kitty in prison.

“You’re being charged drunk and disorderly, with a side of public nuisance, since it’s not like you really got anywhere with the statue. Next time you come up with a plan to do something stupid, make sure it’s something you can pull off.” She narrows her eyes on the road, and adds as an afterthought, “Also, don’t do anything stupid.”

Harry leans back in his seat and sighs. A tiny laugh escapes him. It’s been a long day.

“Baby, can we please just go home?”

Kitty hums in agreement and switches the radio on. As soon as _Jailhouse Rock_ starts blaring from the speakers, it occurs to Harry that they don’t even _own_ any Elvis Presley albums.

Kitty looks very pleased with herself.


End file.
